


I'll Play the Romeo, You Play the Juliet

by butterflylovers



Category: Of Mice & Men (Band)
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-21 00:27:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17032803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/butterflylovers/pseuds/butterflylovers
Summary: It's Austin Carlile's first year as being a teacher. On his first day of teaching, it all goes well. That's until he meets one of his students, Alan Ashby.Title Credit: This One's For You by Of Mice and Men.





	1. Prologue

If his father approved of his dream of being a famous vocalist, then Austin Carlile would be doing that right in this very moment. He would scream into the microphone, jump around and head banged on stage, having the time of his life. Or maybe writing songs and recording another album in the studio. But instead, his dad thought that he wouldn’t get anything out of it; because well, “it’s not a real job, son.” Austin wanted to make his father happy, he really did. After all, he lost his mother and his dad was all he had left.  
  
Instead, Austin decided to pursue a career as a teacher, a music teacher. If he couldn’t do what he has been wanting to do his whole life, he might as well teach what he loved, right? So that’s what he decided, even after finding out the salaries teachers made. After attending college and graduating, he decided to go ahead and teach in high school. He figured that it would be much easier than teaching elementary or middle school kids.  
  
It was 6:45 am, the bell didn’t ring until 7:35 and class didn’t officially start until 7:40. He got ready as quickly as he could, making sure to look his best for his first day. He wore a black button up shirt tucked in his black skinny jeans and his all black Converse since he couldn’t bother to find his dress shoes. Austin wasn’t really sure if his students would take him seriously with his Converse on, but he figured, what the hell. The school he was now teaching in was pretty flexible about his appearance; looking past his tattoos and nose ring. Although, looking at himself in the mirror, he looked like he just came out of a funeral.  
  
Finally, seven o’clock rolled around and he had arrived. He went to his classroom, settling everything in and making sure things looked just how he wanted it to. He felt a mixture of excitement and anxiety about his first day. He felt like he was a freshmen in high school again, only this time he finally grew his facial hair and he isn’t as awkward looking. So many thoughts were running in his mind: Would they like him? Would they take him seriously and respect them? Do they mind that their new teacher has a bunch of tattoos showing?  
  
Soon, the second bell had rung and first class were walking in. Some welcomed him, others ignored him; either way, he tried to keep it polite. Some students were also surprised to see him instead of their previous music teacher. As soon as everyone was seated, he introduced himself, told them a bit about himself, and such.  
  


\--

  
  
It was the last class of the day and Austin has gotten a bit tired of doing the same thing over and over again for the past five classes. He was lucky he had a free period and a lunch right next to each other, otherwise he thought he was going to die. But either way, he went back to doing the same old routine he had been doing the entire school day. As the bell rung, he closed the door before taking attendance.  
  
Once he had finished, he made his way into the center of the room, trying to keep a slightly enthusiastic attitude. “Hey guys, you’ve probably seen me in the halls or heard about me from other classmates, but I’ll still introduce myself,” he started off, “My name is Mr. Carlile and I’ll be your new music teacher.”  
  
Some students nodded, not minding the idea of the new teacher. A student, who Austin remembered was named Sam, asked of the whereabouts of the other teacher. “So, uh, your old music teacher got really sick and had to retire early due to her condition. I don’t really know what was wrong with her, but someone from the staff recommended me this job so I took the offer and here we are now.” He grabbed the stack of paper sitting on his desk. “What I’m handing out is the syllabus for the semester, I’m not gonna go over it since I’m assuming you guys can read on your own. I figured we can take the time to get to know me so I’m not a complete stranger and maybe go over what we’ll do for tomorrow.”  
  
As he passed them out, most of the students got comfortable and asked him questions such as “how old are you?” and “aren’t you sort of young to be a teacher?” He didn’t mind answering them, since he’d give them the same answer he had been giving to the previous students. Eventually, he got used to them and getting familiar with their names and such. He was interrupted, answering yet another question about why he was so tall, with a student entering the classroom late.  
  
“Sorry I’m late, I was in the office,” said a boy. “I have a tardy slip if you want it.”  
  
“It’s alright,” the teacher responded, not looking at the younger male since he was going to the computer to fix the attendance. “You must be Alan Ashby, right?”  
  
“Yeah, that’s me.”  
  
“Since it’s my first day here, I won’t mark you tardy. But please take a seat,” he said, “I’m Mr. Carlile by the way.” Austin finally looked at the boy, who was a ginger actually, as he was going to take a seat next to a boy short, slick brown hair and facial hair better than his. Austin is sure that his name was Tyler, but he’s still getting used to the names so who knows?  
  
He continued answering questions for a few more minutes until he moved on to talking about what the lesson would be tomorrow. He figured he should learn what they already knew first before deciding on something. A small portion of the class actually knew something, so he figured they would start music notes and such to get a bit familiar. Afterwards, he let them use their phones and chat among themselves for the rest of the hour.  
  
The final bell had already rung and the school day finally ended. Everyone quickly exited the room, some saying goodbye to the teacher while others were heading straight to their lockers; ready to leave and not miss their bus. Austin sat himself in front of the computer, quickly logging off.  
  
“Um, Mr. Carlile?” Austin looked up to see Alan standing in front of his desk.  
  
“Yes, Alan?”  
  
“Thanks for not marking me late. That’ll probably happen a lot, just to warn you,” he chuckled, adjusting the shoulder strap of his backpack.  
  
“No problem, but please try to be on time, though.”  
  
“No promises, sir. Well, I gotta go. See you tomorrow!” Alan left the classroom, catching up with Tyler, leaving Austin alone in his classroom. Austin couldn’t help but find the ginger attractive, which wasn’t a good thing since he was his teacher.  
  
 _“God, what am I getting myself into?”_


	2. Chapter 1

**[Austin.]**  
  
I’ve been a teacher for a week now. My first two days went well, no problems with anyone. The next two days, however, things changed a bit. The kids were being a little weird, especially the girls. A lot of them were all over me and trying to get my attention, it was really weird. But overall, things have been well. I’m surprised they have since this was kinda my first time teaching on my own; I always had another teacher with me back when I was a student teacher. Then again, I had to teach five to six year olds, so...yeah. But at least it’s Friday, then I have the weekend to relax.  
  
Despite having weird female students, a certain student has been on my mind a lot lately. Alan Ashby, that cute ginger boy who sat in the front right next to Tyler. God, I don’t know what it was about him but I just find him...attractive. It’s weird for me, I’ve never been attracted to men before. For fucks sake, Alan wasn’t even a man (no offense), he was a kid. Sure, he was eighteen so he was only five years younger than me but still. Besides, I like boobs and ass, on a woman. I’m not homophobic or anything, but I can’t be having these kinds of thoughts or feelings towards him, you know? Especially if he’s my student and all.  
  
I was on my free period and I decided to have lunch a little early and watch some Netflix since I was already ahead of the lesson plan and didn’t really wanna waste time checking it for the millionth time today. The door opened and an all too familiar face was shown.  
  
“Hey Austin! How’s the teaching so far?” asked Phil Manansala, my friend from high school and the school’s principal. “Having lunch early, I see.”  
  
“Pretty good so far,” I answered, pausing the episode of  _It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia._ “Of course, dude, I’m starving! I skipped breakfast so I figured it’d be okay to have lunch a little early.”  
  
He laughs, leaning against the doorway. “So far, just wait a few more weeks. Then they’ll be treating you like shit and act like demons. Unless you’re lucky. But yeah, don’t sweat it on the lunch.”  
  
“Alright.” I chuckled. “I wanted to thank you again for the job, Phil, really means a lot.”  
  
“For the millionth time, Austin, you’re welcome” he said, pulling one of the chairs next to my desk. “Hey, I’ve been hearing that some of the girls really like you.”  
  
“Oh my god.” I groaned, shaking my head. “I really don’t wanna talk about a bunch of teenage girls drooling over me.”  
  
He laughs again, giving a playful punch to my shoulder. “Alright, you know I’m just playing. I better get going, I have a meeting with a new student and their parents. Later Austin, or should I say... Mr. Carlile.”  
  
“Shut up, Phil. Or would you like to be called Mr. Manansala?”  
  
“Damn Austin, you’re making me feel old!”  
  
I laughed, watching him leave. I never realized how weird it was seeing him with a man bun.  
  


\--

  
  
“Alright class, settle down. I decided to assign you guys an easy assignment after spending the past few days learning music notes and all,” I announced, passing out a hand out of the assignment. “It’s not gonna be anything hard, like I said. All you have to do is research one of your favorite artist no matter what music genre. You tell me a bit about the music and genre they do. Then you pick two songs, find a music sheet of the songs, print them out and circle all the notes we went over with. They have to at least have five, and you must state the meaning of the note. And before you ask, yes you can have a partner. But I don’t want to see a group of three or more. Got it?”  
  
Without any complaints, surprisingly, the students grabbed their chromebooks from the shelf and got into pairs. There were only a few people working on their own. People were working, though mostly chatting, for the next ten or fifteen minutes until someone had knocked on the door.  
  
I go to open the door, only to find a familiar freckled face. “Late again, Ashby?”  
  
He entered the room, handing me the pink tardy slip. “I told you that I was gonna be late a lot, Mr. Carlile.”  
  
“Yeah, yeah. Anyway, you have an assignment to do actually.”  
  
“Damn, I was hoping that you forgot what those are.”  
  
“Sorry, Alan, it's just my job.” I handed him the sheet of paper explaining what he had to do. He just shook his head. I guess he didn’t mind. “You understand everything right?”  
  
“Yup,” he answered. He walked to his usual desk, in the center front right next to Tyler Carter, who I noticed he often hung out with along with another student named Justin Trotta.  
  
I just go and sit on my desk, mark Alan tardy and just chill. Every now and then, I check up on how the kids are doing or if they needed help, but they convince me that they have every settled otherwise. When I was sitting in front of the computer, I would often find myself glancing at Alan every now and then. It annoyed me, so I tried distracting myself by doing stuff on the computer. I had nothing to grade so I decided to come up with next week's lesson plan.  
  
Eventually the bell rang, thank god. “Have a good weekend! Don't forget your assignment is due next Friday by the beginning of the hour! You can hand it in physically or digitally on Google Classroom, but the music sheet and notes must be printed out!.”  
  
Some students were still in the classroom gathering their things. I had to put away some of the chromebooks a few students left on the desks. As I was plugging them back into the shelf neatly, Tyler had came up to me.  
  
“Hey Mr. Carlile, can I ask you something?”  
  
“Hey Tyler, what's up?”  
  
“Not trying to sound rude or anything, and you don't have to answer if you're not comfortable answering but, um, are you straight?” he asked.  
  
“Excused me?” I asked in shock. “I don’t think I heard you right.”  
  
“I'm sorry,” he said, looking just as uncomfortable as I was. “I mean, I was wondering if you were because I'm part of this group in school called GSA, which is the Gay Straight Alliance. And it's really a LGBTQ safe place but we don't really have any teachers apart of the group so I was wondering whether or not it applies to you and if you were interested. I just thought you'd be a good match to the group since students seem to like you already.”  
  
Okay then. “I'll think about it, yeah? I’ll let you know.”  
  
“Okay, well sorry again for making you feel uncomfortable or anything and thanks Mr. Carlile. See ya Monday!” He left with Alan, who I saw was waiting for him by the doorway. The ginger waved goodbye to me as the two left the room.  
  
God, I thought Tyler was on to me or noticed me staring at Alan. It was starting to bother me. I didn't sign up to have my head and feelings fucked with. I never knew being a teacher would cause me to be in this type of situation.


	3. Chapter 2

**[Alan.]**  
  
This was my senior year of high school. I was told high school was going to be the best four years of my life, but the truth of the matter was that it wasn’t. High school has been boring and uneventful. Well, maybe not so much this year ever seen we have a new music teacher.  
  
Shady Glade has had the same teachers for the past ten years so when we found out that the old music teacher, Mrs. Wallace, was going to retire early due to a chronic illness she had, a lot of us were shocked to hear that there was gonna be a new teacher. A young, new teacher actually.  
  
His name was Mr. Carlile. And he seemed to be the coolest teacher around. Not only was he young, but he was really chill and totally covered in ink. He was like the friendly neighborhood bad ass. The girls adored him and the guys liked having him around. The GSA and a few other groups in the school want him to participate in their squad of whatever. He’s been a magnet and a lot of people really like him, even myself.  
  
He was really chill to talk to. I never really had a lot of normal conversations with the guy but he was alright with me being late to class. I try not to make it a bad habit of mine, though I have not done any progress on that the past three years. Other than being super chill, I loved his ink too. And he seems to have good taste in music. He’d show us examples and he’ll play songs from bands like The Used and Converge. Really cool guy, I swear.  
  
It was weird too, because I also find myself… _attracted_  to him. It’s weird to me because I never really felt like that towards a guy or anyone. But now that this guy comes along, I get jittery like all the anxiety building up in my stomach is gonna fall out of my ass. That’s normal right? I don’t know, sometimes I see a guy and I think as a heterosexual male that they look good or whatever but I feel like it’s different with Mr. Carlile. I like seeing him, I like talking to him, I like looking at him.  
  
Fuck, why the hell am I feeling this way? I don’t really give a shit if I realize I’m gay or whatever but I just cannot develop a crush or anything sort of serious feelings towards my teacher. There is no chance of us ever having something more than a student/teacher relationship, it would never work out anyways if there was something. Besides, I’m sure guys like him are as straight as a pole or taken. He’s probably both, I can’t imagine someone like him not having a girlfriend.  
  
And I mean that in the most heterosexual way.  
  
I shook my head of these thoughts as I realized I was staring at the computer screen for awhile now. Class just started like five minutes ago and we were working on our assignment that we got last Friday. Surprisingly, I was on time today. I was sitting next to Tyler as usual. Tyler is one of my best friends, we’re pretty open about what’s going on with each other but I haven’t told him about my “feelings” towards Mr. Carlile. It wasn’t the fear of rejection from Tyler since he’s bisexual, but rather the judgement.  
  
While Tyler was talking to this guy named Trent that he spotted his eye on today, I glanced at him. He was standing next to the door, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. One of the girls were apologizing for being late.  
  
“I’m really, really,  _really_  sorry, Mr. Carlile,” she says, tilting her head to the side. She puts a hand on his arm. He immediately looks uncomfortable. “Is there any way I can make it up to you?”  
  
“It’s just a tardy, Melanie,” he said, raising an eyebrow.  
  
I grab the handout of the assignment, going towards them. I decided to save him from the situation. “Hey Mr. Carlile! I had a question about this part of the assignment.” She awkwardly left, going to sit with her friends in the back of the room. As soon as I saw that she was far away, I explained to him that I saw what happened with Melanie and came to save him from the situation.  
  
“Well thanks for that, I appreciate it.”  
  
“No problem.” He gave me cute smile.  
  
“I should have you around more often, I always get myself stuck in these situations with these girls.” He laughs. “Well, we better get back to work, huh?”  
  


\--

  
  
“Alan,” Tyler whispered to me.  
  
“What?”  
  
“Let me send you a text, I don’t want people to hear me say it.”  
  
“It better not be about dicks,” I joked.  
  
“Shut up.” He gave me a playful glare. “Now check your phone.”  
  


**Ty Ty:**   
_”why do you keep checking out mr.carlile???”_

  
  
“Dude,” I said, getting embarrassed. “What the fuck?”  
  
“Don’t play dumb, Ash. I know what I saw.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“If you like him so much, then go use your ginger charm on him.”  
  
“Quit being weird, Ty.”  
  
“It’s not my fault you like Carlile,” he said a bit too loudly.  
  
“I don’t so shut the fuck up!” I shouted, now putting my head down in shame as I could feel everyone’s eyes on me. I glanced up and noticed that even Mr. Carlile was looking at us.  
  
All he did was chuckle, smiling at me and shaking his head. “I’m alright with a bit of swearing, but no need to shout it.” He chuckles again. “I’ll just pretend I didn’t hear it though, continue with your work boys.”  
  
As soon as we saw that he went back to what he was doing, Tyler turned to me. “I’m sorry for kind of calling you out, but you have to stop overreacting. I think you do if you made a scene.”  
  
“I don’t like一” Mr. Carlile had cut me off.  
  
“Alright class, I thought I would quiz you on the material so I know that you’re all on the same page. It’s a short multiple choice quiz and we’ll go over the answers once everyone is done. It’s linked on the Google Classroom page.”  
  
Well at least it was multiple choice. It was ten questions but they weren’t too hard. I finished early since I play guitar and I write my own music when I have the free time. In the middle of the quiz, someone barged in the classroom.  
  
“Austin!” the stranger exclaimed. Wait, who hell is this?


	4. Chapter 3

**[Austin.]**  
  
Oh my god, I can’t believe my fiancée, Hannah, came by to interrupt my class.  
  
You’re probably wondering who Hannah is. Her name is Hannah Snowdon, she’s been my fiance for about a year now. A couple years ago, I got to study abroad for the semester. I went to England, where I met Hannah in a tattoo parlor. She gave me one of my tattoos my second day in England. From then throughout my time in England, I spent practically every day seeing her. Eventually, she agreed to go on a date with me; which went horrible but it won me a second and more dates with her until I asked her to be my girlfriend. We’ve been in a long distance relationship until she moved in with me recently.  
  
“Hannah, what are you doing here?” I asked, feeling a bit embarrassed as I felt all eyes on us.  
  
“I’m sorry Austin, I’m still a bit jet lagged,” she said, blushing. “I was going to bring you lunch but I just realized that it’s close to 2:30. I’m so sorry for interrupting your class.”  
  
“It’s okay,” I said, grabbing the lunch box from her hands. “I’ll see you back home, yeah? We can go to dinner or something.”  
  
“I’d like that.” She gives me a small smile. She pecks my cheek. “See ya, nice meeting you Austin’s students.”  
  
As she closes the door behind her, one of the students, Melanie, asks, “Who was that?”  
  
I set the lunch box on my desk. “That was my fiancée, Hannah.”  
  
“She’s British?!” one of my other students, Jaden, asks.  
  
“Yeah, uh, we met in England when I went to study abroad back in college, which I by the way recommend to take the opportunity when your college or university offers it. But yeah, she just moved here from England a month ago after being in a long distance relationship.”  
  
“That’s so sweet,” one of the girls in the back exclaim.  
  
“Well, anyway, is everyone done with their quiz? Yeah? Okay, let’s go over it, feel free to take notes to help you with the assignment."  
  


\--

  
  
When school had finally ended and I tidied the classroom a bit, I drove back home. During the fifteen minute drive, I thought about the younger ginger in my class. When I had announced that Hannah was my fiancée to the class, I could have sworn that I saw a hurt expression. Maybe I was just seeing things.  
  
I’ve been trying to ignore my feelings towards Alan. I mean, I’m happily engaged to an awesome girl. I would hate if my feelings got in the way of our engagement. Hannah is a really nice girl, I wouldn’t want to hurt her if I found someone else or started falling for someone else; especially if that someone was one of my students. Plus, it would have been a waste flying her all the way from England so we could finally be together physically and just have our relationship be thrown away. I know Hannah sacrificed a lot just for us to be together here in California.  
  
When I got home, I found Hannah laying down on our couch. She was wearing a pink tank top that was a bit short like a crop top but a little longer, so her tattooed stomach was a bit exposed. She also wore black Calvin Klein boxers. She was watching Shameless on the TV.  
  
“Are you finally watching Shameless?” I asked her, kicking off my shoes.  
  
“I thought I would check out the American version of the show since I’ve already seen the original version back in England,” she said. She sits up to turn to me. “It’s not bad, to be honest. Especially since Americans ruin a lot of our shows like The Inbetweeners and Skins.”  
  
I hopped over the couch, sat down and put an arm around her. She cuddled against me. I kissed the top of her head. “Well, I finished watching Skins so now we can have something to talk about over dinner tonight.”  
  
“I’ve been telling you to watch that show for a year now, Austin!” she laughs. “I wanted to apologize for interrupting your class today, I feel awful if I embarrassed you.”  
  
“Hannie, it’s okay. Let’s watch an episode before going out, ‘kay?”  
  
“Okay,” she answered.  
  
As we were watching it, I could no longer pay attention to it because Ian Gallagher somehow reminded me of Alan and Mickey Milkovich reminded me of myself. I was so glad we finished the episode sooner. I wanted to treat my  _fiancée_  with a nice dinner.  
  


-=-

  
  
Before leaving for work, I told Hannah what time my free period was so we could have lunch together. Later on, she came for lunch and to help me with the week’s lesson plans. She left five minutes before my lunch break ended. It was a nice.  
  
Finally, my last class arrived quickly as usual. They all went to grab their chromebooks and got to work. Alan was late again, I noticed. I marked him tardy, waiting for him to arrive. I was putting the quiz grades in the grade book and I realized that it was already halfway through the class period and Alan still hadn’t arrived. I asked Tyler if he knew if Alan was here. He said he was but he didn’t know why he hasn’t shown. Right before I was about to change it to an “absent,” Alan barged into the classroom.  
  
“Alan, you’re late,” I stated like it wasn’t obvious.  
  
“I know,” he grumbled out, sitting next to Tyler who looked concerned.  
  
“Alan, where’s your unexcused tardy pass?”  
  
“I don’t know, up your ass?”  
  
“Excuse me?” I was taken back by his words. Even Tyler was, he was looking at his friend like he was insane. At this point, the students were watching this exchange of words.  
  
“Mr. Ashby, I’m a pretty flexible teacher when it comes to letting you guys swear but this is unacceptable.”  
  
“Fuck off, Carlile,” he says. He doesn’t even look at me.  
  
“Alan, go to the office now!” I shout. “I’m not gonna take your fucking pissed off attitude. If you wanna be a pissed off teenager, go do it in the office where they can handle your shit attitude. Understand?”  
  
“Fine! I didn’t even wanna be here anyway so you’re doing me a favor!”  
  
“Yeah? And you’re doing me a favor by getting the hell out of here. Now go!”  
  
He glares at me, slamming the door behind him. I ignore the student’s stares, calling the office to let them know that I had sent Alan to the office for being disrespectful about his tardiness. I sigh heavily as I hang up the phone. As I turn around, the class is still looking at me, silent.  
  
“Uh,” I rub the back of my neck, “I’m sorry for what just happened. I know I shouldn’t have sworn at Alan despite him swearing at me. Just, uh...please get back to work, guys.”  
  
After looking at me for a few more seconds, they went back to work. They were silent the whole time, which was unusual since they usually chatted among themselves. I guess because of the tension that hadn’t left with Alan. After class ended, the students were kind enough to actually put everything away before leaving.  
  
Tyler came up to my desk once everyone left. “Hey, Mr. Carlile, I’m sorry about Alan’s attitude today. I’m sure he didn’t mean it, I don’t know why but ever since yesterday after school, he’s been in a bad mood.”  
  
“It’s okay, Tyler, it’s not your fault,” I said, packing up my things. “Well if you see or hear from Alan, please let him know that I didn’t mean to hurt his feelings and yell at him like that, yeah?”  
  
“I will, later Mr. Carlile.”  
  
He’s been in a bad mad since yesterday after school, huh? Could it have been because of Hannah?  
  
No, I know I mean nothing to Alan.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! The rest of the story will be in first person point of view. c:


End file.
